Highlights

Couldn't score tickets to that Green Triceratops Gnarly Aurora Borealis show this Spring? No fear! Your second favorite band with an over-the-top clusterfuck of a name is touring the States this spring. Black Moth Super Rainbow, in anticipation of the May 26 release of its fourth LP Eating Us on Graveface Records (TMT News), is touring the Midwest and West Coast. The tour kicks off in Chicago and ends in Columbus, OH; former Secret Machines guitarist Benjamin Curtis' new project School of Seven Bells are along for the ride on all dates, except the Sasquatch! Music Festival

Hey ya’ll. The news roundup is a little thin this week. Most of the press releases I had were related to SXSW and weren’t exactly news-worthy. All I figured out was that, as Annapocalypse mentioned, Pains of Being Pure at Heart are taking over Austin and that I really want to try and see Best Worst Movie on the Friday of SXSW. I’m heading down to that mess on Wednesday. I’m mostly excited about eating tacos.

- Just to clarify, The Melvins, as a band, are turning 25. The Melvins, as people, are old as fuck and are way older than 25 (sike, they are in their 40s... that ain’t too old.) Regardless, the boys are celebrating their band-birthday with some shows in May. The four shows will happen in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Austin and will feature the original lineup of Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, and Mike Dillard. Trevor Dunn (bassist for Fantômas, Mr. Bungle) will join Buzz and Dale to perform Houdini later during the set. All of this happens in mid-May; you can find the details on the Ipecac site.

- Danish dudes Efterklang are currently on tour, hitting the West coast, SXSW, the South, and the East Coast during March and some of April. I like to say their name the way I think (yes I know he’s Austrian) Arnold Schwarzenegger would say it: ef-ta-klaang. I live in Georgia though, so it probably sounds more like “YEE HAW, EFTER-KLAN-G, YA’LL!” Anyway, you can find out the specific dates at their official site.

- Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction are heading out on tour together this summer, with Tom Morello and Boots Riley’s Street Sweeper as support -- ’90s in the HOUSE. The tour will run from May to mid June and will be the first time in 17 years the original lineup of Jane’s Addiction will tour (whoopee). You can find more details on either the Nine Inch Nails site or the Jane’s Addiction site, but I’m going to link to Nine Inch Nails because I don’t really care about Jane’s Addiction. Sorry.

- Have you ever thought to yourself, “Man, I wish I didn’t have to leave my house to go to a show. Wouldn’t it be awesome if David Bazan could just play in my living room?” Yeah, me neither. But if you are one of those people, you are in luck! David Bazan is releasing his latest record Curse Your Branches August 25 and is also doing some weird tour where he will play your house to “35-75 people.” Didn’t Music Tapes do something like this, only cooler? You can learn more about this at his website.

Due to my above-mentioned SXSW plans, you might get a “roundup” next week, you might not. Just in case, I leave you with this video (NSFW):

After Diddy and co's neat, tidy little bow packaging of the complex life of rapper Notorious B.I.G. with the film Notorious (TMT Review), we knew it would only be a matter of time before another biopic on a legendary rap artist would appear. In this case, it's on a legendary rap group, as word dropped recently that pioneering gangster rappers N.W.A. will be getting the biopic treatment. The movie is being produced by founding N.W.A. members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre along with Eazy-E’s widow, Tomica Wright. According to Entertainment Weekly, the producers "are now actively searching for a director along the lines of Curtis Hanson," director of Eminem's pseudo-biopic 8 Mile.

Rap biopics promise more than the standard Ray-style musician biopics, though it's hard to imagine that, with members of the group serving as its producers, the movie won't be anything but the crystalline spectacles version of the group's story. Still, it's even harder to imagine that a movie about N.W.A., a group known for its riveting oral portraits of poverty, drug use, and disturbingly casual violence, will be eazy to digest. Sorry, couldn't resist! Currently, screenwriters are furiously trying to map out a montage sequence that effortlessly displays the boys talking hard, rebuffing trash talk, pulling people's cards, living in a legitimate manner, and otherwise not saying shit.

This spring is looking to be a busy time for Casiotone For the Painfully Alone. Now that this depressing winter is on its way out, Casiotone's Owen Ashworth is ready to leave his cozy little bedroom and hit the road. He is starting off with a few dates in Texas -- which will see him playing the Tomlab/K/Asthmatic Kitty showcase, as well as the Team Clermont/Utne Reader one as part of Austin's SXSW -- and will soon after be jetting out to Europe to do a month of shows. A U.S. tour is expected this spring, too.

All this activity will be in support of his upcoming records: Advance Base Battery Life, a collection of 7-inch split-singles and compilation tracks he released from 2004-7, all but two of them on CD for the first time, out March 10 on Tomlab; and Vs. Children, the fifth album proper from CTFPA since 2006's Etiquette, which is due April 7 also on Tomlab.

According to a new blog post on their MySpace page, Hella have reshuffled themselves back to the original duo of Zach Hill and Spencer Seim. They are currently at work on Hella’s new album, which will be recorded and finished sometime this year on an as-yet unknown record label. Because this news is not particularly that exciting, I’ve decided to rewrite this story below and add in a few creative details that the Hella boys might have missed when they wrote their blog entry:

Hey guys! Hella is back to being a duo after kicking out Josh Hill (Zach’s cousin), Carson McWhirter (The Advantage), and Aaron Ross. Zach and Spencer decided it was time to part with the band members after learning they were the creators of this blog and that they still believe in the Easter bunny (see the cruel joke Zach and Spencer played on them in the “Band Members” section of their MySpace page.) Zach and Spencer are currently at work on their new album.

China renewed its charm offensive on TMT readers this week with an audacious hacking of iTunes’ gift certificate algorithm. These upstanding Chinese citizens are now selling $200 gift cards on Taobao, a Chinese equivalent to eBay, for as little as $2.60. Using the site’s instant messaging platform, the buyer receives a gift voucher code from the seller that can then be used to redeem the card from a user's iTunes account. The cards are also available in the U.S for around $43 on eBay.

The hacker’s craft is so brilliant that not only have they given Apple a fine kick in the teeth, but they’ve also posed a frustrating conundrum for those good-for-nothing capitalists. If Apple decides to change the gift voucher code generation algorithm, all of the cards available right now would become obsolete. Consequently, the only ones making money at this moment in time are the code sellers and the artists who still get paid when their music is downloaded from iTunes.

It’s been only a week since the Chinese government’s commendable decision to ban Oasis from playing dates in Shanghai and Beijing in April (TMT News) and now this ingenious nation delivers another slap in the face to shameless profiteers. Who ever said quasi-Communism doesn’t work?

Man, if I was releasing a record, I would NOT forecast my subsequent album’s transcendent greatness in its fucking title. The Field’s Axel Willner may have learned a thing or two about that himself, as his follow-up to 2007’s hazy slow-burn smash, From Here We Go Sublime, bears the considerably more cautiously-ubiquitous title of Yesterday and Today. But just to up the ante this time around, Willner's label, Kompakt, has teamed-up with Tom Waits Records... I mean, ANTI-, to release the anticipated follow-up, which is gonna drop May 19. Willner has also teamed up with Clash frontman Joe Strummer... I mean, Battles drummer John Stanier for the title track, and Willner's best press guys swear that he expands his palette, “continuing the oblique sampling strategy of From Here We Go Sublime while building up the rhythmic architecture.” So yeah, there’s that “ubiquity” theme again. Maybe this is a concept record?

Of course, since igniting loft party musical conversations around the world with Sublime, we all know that Willner has been much in demand as a remixer, with tracks from local British singer Thom Yorke to hot U.S. jazz combo Battles raising his profile significantly, so hopefully this album really does stack up, even if the title doesn’t. Otherwise that Sublime-covers route might not be a bad idea.

A ubiquitous “spring/summer North American tour” is also in the works, so sit tight on that. Meanwhile, here’s that good-old ubiquitous tracklist:

1. I Have The Moon, You Have The Internet2. Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime3. Leave It4. Yesterday & Today (feat. John Stanier)5. The More That I Do6. Sequenced

The mercurial Mia Doi Todd (whose name is rather hard to say after a few drinks I discovered) will be going a different direction from her normal lush and haunting folk: completely instrumental. Given the rich compositions demonstrated on her earlier releases and her BFF opportunities with Dungen, Morning Music promises to be a layered listen.

Without turning this article into an itemized grocery list, it's interesting to note that Mia will be toolin' around with "drum, harmonium, piano, tin whistle, tamboura, acoustic guitar, and bongos," while collaborator Andres Renteria will take over "cajon, piano, wooden stool and udu" duties. Sounds like the hippie shit to me, but MDT consistently adds a foreboding tone to make each song daring and delicious, so I'm not worried.

- Countless million-selling records? Check.- Member of a band with a catalog of legendary songs? Check.- Culture-defining musical statements? Check.- Duetted with Michael Jackson? Check.- Composer of the coolest James Bond theme? Check.

Despite being the most boringly irrelevant member of The Beatles (hate email here), Paul McCartney sure does have a lot of accomplishments as part of his legacy. However, not a man to rest on his laurels, McCartney has recently added a new success to the list, as his show on April 19 at Las Vegas’ New Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino has sold all 4,000 tickets in a record seven seconds, a rate of 600 seats per second. Tickets haven’t sold this fast since I conned people into buying their way into Obama’s victory rally on Election Night!

Promoters for the show, Concerts West/AEG Live, barely revealing their shock at the new triumph, expect even more world records to be set the night of the show. “Although Guinness World Records cites numerous records relating to Valentine's Day, nobody has managed a Valentine's party this big before -- so we'll be claiming that," said a spokesman for the agency. Tickets were released on February 14 (deliberately), so “lovers could express their feelings with the ultimate Valentine's Day gift surprise.” Ah, yes, nothing says love like chair-dancing to a song you’ve heard a thousand times.

Concerts West/AEG Live are hoping to set a world record for “the planet’s biggest ‘love-in.” Big love-in? Wow, that reminds me of San Fran in ’67 or Taiwan in 2007. Yep, Taiwan, that sounds like another world record to break: “And there is another Guinness record it would be cool to break there too -- the world record for the most couples hugging simultaneously is 1,451, set in Taiwan in 2007," the concert spokesman added, probably scowling slightly at the mention of Taiwan.

You know what? Fuck this. Fuck Paul McCartney. There is nothing more boring to me at this point in my life than talking about The Beatles or anything related to The Beatles. Yeah, we all know they did a lot for popular music. Get over it, talk about something else. I don’t think that anything annoys me more than when people list the Beatles as their favorite band. Big Fucking Surprise. Those people also enjoy food, and oxygen, oh and “being happy.” WE ALL LIKE THE BEATLES!

Speaking to BBC's Newsbeat, Ed O'Brien says Radiohead plan to hit the studio soon: "We are working on new material. We'll be doing some more recording. It's business as usual." The album will be, of course, the follow-up to 2007's In Rainbows (TMT Review), a concept album about Miley Cyrus' progression from baby to teenager, with drummer Phil Selway as Miley and bassist Colin Greenwood as her manager.

The interview took place yesterday in London at the launch for the Featured Artists' Coalition (FAC) lobby group. The group, which also includes Billy Bragg, Dave Rowntree (Blur), Kate Nash, and fucking Iron Maiden, intends to "stand up for all artists by engaging with government, music and technology companies, and collection societies, arguing for fair play and, where necessary, exposing unfair practices."

According to O'Brien: "Radiohead signed very traditional record company contracts, and it was exactly what we wanted to do at the time and there's no bitterness, but I think there's an inherent feeling that they're just a bit old school."

"There are some bigger names here but the whole essence of what we’re trying to do is really largely aimed at, and for the benefit of, the younger musician, the people coming into the music industry for the first time."

You can read more about FAC at the group's website, including its charter and demands for Fair Play.